2016年07月

2016年07月31日

ドナルドトランプ指名の奇妙な背景

SHORTLY after Donald Trump was confirmed as the Republican nominee, a pair of men wearing straw boaters wandered around outside the convention centre, weighing up the merits of tacos versus hot dogs. A man wearing an elephant hat was being filmed by a woman on her mobile phone, while two women wearing red skirts with white elephants on them stood nearby. People held doors open for each other. This was a transformative moment in the history of one of the world’s great political parties, but it hardly seemed so to those enjoying Cleveland’s evening sunshine while the roll call of state delegates concluded inside. There was no Wagnerian soundtrack, just some snatches of KC and the Sunshine Band drifting out from the hall. This is how a big moment in history sounds.

At the beginning of the convention, Donald Trump’s campaign manager said that his candidate was planning to copy Richard Nixon’s 1968 campaign, presenting himself as the law-and-order candidate. That election saw the birth of the Southern Strategy, which exploited white resentment after the Civil Rights Act. It saw violence at the Democratic convention in Chicago, the race riots in 11 mostly northern cities that accelerated the flight of whites to the suburbs, and protests against the Vietnam war. America in 2016 is not like America in 1968. Violent crime has fallen by more than half over the past 20 years, the economy is growing at a steady, unspectacular rate, illegal border crossings are at a low level, there are signs of racial progress for those who want to see them. Outside the convention, the violence that many predicted has yet to materialise.

white resentment：白人の不満unspectacular：見栄えのしないflight：群れ

The country described within the Quicken Loans Arena is very different. It is a lawless, borderless place, threatened by terrorists and run by crooks. The most memorable moments of the first evening came in painful speeches given by bereaved parents, whose children had been killed by illegal immigrants or by terrorists in Libya. “I blame Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son,” said one. This stuff was interspersed with bizarre moments from some formerly famous people, notable only for their willingness to say nice things about the nominee. “Let’s make America America again,” implored Scott Baio, an actor from “Happy Days”, which broadcast its final episode in 1984. A former underwear model went from praising Mr Trump on stage to declaring in a TV studio that Barack Obama was a Muslim.

While all this was going on, Mr Trump gave interviews that drew attention away from his own convention. Even when he is the star of the show, it seems, he cannot bear it when someone else’s face is on screen.

A GROUP of ultra-Orthodox (or Haredi) Jews arriving at a meeting recently at Facebook’s Israeli headquarters were initially barred from entering by the security guard. “He couldn’t believe we actually had a business reason for being there,” said one participant. “He thought we wanted to hold a demonstration”.

hold a demonstration：デモをやる

The altercation was a sign of how rare it is to see black-garbed Haredi Israelis in the shining development centres of the startup nation. Some 300,000 people, or about 8% of the Israeli workforce, are employed in the country’s burgeoning high-tech industry. The industry has sucked in talent so quickly that it is now constrained by a shortage of qualified engineers and programmers and is looking abroad. Yet a large and almost untapped pool of talent lies close to home. Only 2% of Israel’s tech employees are ultra-Orthodox Jews, although the community makes up nearly 10% of the population (similarly just 3% of tech employees are Arab, despite making up about 20% of the total). And of those ultra-Orthodox Jews who are employed by tech companies, about two-thirds are women who work mainly in call centres for low pay.

altercation：口論black-garbed：黒い服を着たburgeoning：急成長のconstrained：制約されるclose to home：手近なところに

The main reason there are so few Haredi techies is because most ultra-Orthodox men have only a very rudimentary education in mathematics and English. Although they spend years in a yeshiva, a religious seminary, most of their time goes on studying the Torah. Those few yeshiva graduates who do have the right skills to get tech jobs still struggle to hear about them or get recommended for jobs because they are not plugged into the networks of developers and entrepreneurs who often know one another from their days in the army or university, two institutions that have very few Haredis. Another impediment is that many senior rabbis have forbidden their followers from having internet in their homes or owning smartphones because of the temptations to sin that they may be exposed to.

rudimentary：初歩的なseminary：神学校impediment：障害rabbis：神父

The barriers are highest for those who want to fulfil the Israeli dream of founding their own startup company. “Even when I succeeded in getting a meeting with potential investors, they looked at me as if I was an alien,” says Moshe Friedman, who at the age of thirty, left his yeshiva and, with friends, developed an app to simplify video-editing. After seeing how tough it was for religious Jews to get a foothold in the tech industry, he went on to set up Kamatech, a company working to place Haredi employees with some of the largest tech firms in Israel, and to create a network for entrepreneurs from the community.

So far he has connected eight Haredi startups with established tech firms. The startups have raised more than $6m in initial investments and employ seventy people. That might sound like an impressive start, but when compared to the $4.5 billion raised by Israeli startups in 2015, it shows how much ground Haredi entrepreneurs still have to make up.

2016年07月29日

Turkey’s foreign-policy reset, assuming it continues, will not be easy. To restore ties with Egypt, Mr Erdogan and his Justice and Development party will have to cut back their support for the scores of Muslim Brothers who fled to Istanbul after a deadly crackdown by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in 2013. For a government that has spent years marketing itself as the voice of oppressed Muslims worldwide, this will be difficult. Syria is an even bigger problem. To anti-regime rebels bombed by Russian and Syrian jets, a Turkish U-turn on Mr Assad will seem like a betrayal.

scores：非常に多くの

Turkey’s policy in the Middle East since 2011, once described by an adviser to Mr Erdogan as “precious loneliness”, has failed to pay dividends. Instead, it has left the country exposed to IS attacks, a renewed war in its Kurdish south-east, and tensions with allies. It is no surprise that Turkey has turned more genial; it needs all the friends it can get.

Europe is now a bigger concern for Britain than immigrationJul 20th 2016, 16:47 BY THE DATA TEAM

今やヨーロッパの方が移民よりも英国にとって大きな関心がある。

FOR the first time in two decades the European Union is the biggest concern for voters, according to the July 2016 Economist/Ipsos MORI issues index. Ever since the referendum on EU membership was announced, Europe has been an increasingly important issue for Brits. But after the referendum result, worries about Europe jumped to their highest level since 1997 and, in doing so, overtook fears about health care and immigration.

In the build-up to the referendum Remain campaigners were hopeful that a new surge in registrations would help their cause. Many of the new voters were young and, supposedly, more likely to plump for Britain to stay in the EU. But data from the Electoral Commission reveals that, in the first six months of this year, those registering to vote were more likely to hail from Eurosceptic areas than Europhile ones. Small wonder the Brexiters won by a margin of more than 1m voters.

2016年07月28日

Mr Yildirim’s government had every reason to bury the hatchet with Moscow. Sanctions imposed by the Kremlin last autumn have hurt. Turkish exports to Russia dropped by 60% in the first half of the year; the number of Russian travellers to Turkey was down more than 90% in May compared with last year’s figures, largely as a result of a ban on tourism. Russian operators have recently restarted flights to Turkey after an eight-month hiatus. Tourists who spilled out of a Rossiya Airlines flight last weekend in Antalya, a Turkish resort town, were feted with champagne and flowers.

bury the hatchet：まさかり・仲直りするhiatus：中断feted：もてなしを受ける

Meanwhile, Russia’s intervention in Syria has blocked Turkish ambitions to play regional kingmaker. With its Syrian proxies bloodied by regime forces, Russian jets and the jihadist fighters of Islamic State (IS), Turkey risks being cut out of any prospective agreement over the country’s future. By cozying up to the Russians, Western diplomats say, it hopes to win back a seat at the table.

kingmaker：実力者cozying up to：の機嫌をとるwin back a seat：席を取り戻す

Yet reconciliation with the Kremlin can only go so far. Turkey and Russia remain at odds in the Caucasus and in the Black Sea, which the president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, recently described as on the verge of becoming “a Russian lake”. Turkey also resents what it sees as Russia’s habit of allowing home-grown jihadists to travel to Syria. Such concerns have grown since an attack by IS militants killed 45 people at Istanbul’s main international airport on June 28th. Two of the suicide bombers involved, as well as several suspected accomplices, turned out to be Russian nationals. “They’re not stopping these people,” complains a Turkish official, referring to militants from the northern Caucasus who regularly surface Turkey’s border with Syria. “It’s placing an enormous burden on our shoulders.”

reconciliation：和解can only go so far：その程度でしかないresents：に憤慨するaccomplice：共犯者

It is in Syria that the new charm offensive faces its biggest test. Turkish officials continue to hold the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Syrians, but realise that efforts to topple him are unlikely to succeed anytime soon. Turkey already seems less concerned with Mr Assad than with preventing Kurdish insurgents from gaining a permanent foothold in the country’s north. The rapprochement with Russia means it is even more likely to ditch its support for regime change. “After this Assad will no longer be a red line,” says Osman Bahadir Dincer of the International Strategic Research Organisation, a think-tank in Ankara.

charm offensive：人気取り作戦ditch：捨てる

The departure of Turkey’s former prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has served as an excuse to push ahead with changes that were long overdue. Mr Davutoglu was credited with shaping his country’s foreign policy over the past decade, and foreign observers viewed him as a moderate who restrained Mr Erdogan’s pugnacious instincts. Ironically, since he was booted from office in May after a series of spats with Mr Erdogan, Turkey’s adventurist streak has given way to pragmatism, at least in the Middle East.

long overdue：長年の懸案だったcredit：評価されるpugnacious：好戦的なbooted：クビにするspats：意見の不一致・口論streak：傾向given way to：に取って代わる

2016年07月27日

That would be hugely provocative. Although America is deeply reluctant to risk a conflict, President Barack Obama is thought in March to have warned his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, that any move on Scarborough Shoal would be seen as threatening American interests (the Philippines is a treaty ally). For China to call its bluff in a sea that carries $5.3 trillion in annual trade would be reckless and irresponsible.

There is a better way. China could climb down and, in effect, quietly recognise the court’s ruling. That would mean ceasing its island-building, letting other countries fish where UNCLOS allows and putting a stop to poaching by its own fishermen. It would have good reason: its prestige and prosperity depend on a rules-based order. It would be in China’s interests to secure peace in its region by sitting down with the Philippines, Vietnam and other South-East Asian neighbours and trying to resolve differences. Right now those countries, and America, should avoid action that will needlessly enrage China, and instead give it a chance to walk back from the edge.

What is the Turkish for rapprochement?Turkey is suddenly making friends, not enemiesPresident Erdogan’s attitudes to Israel, Russia and Syria have undergone a sudden resetJul 15th 2016 | ISTANBUL | Europe

TURKEY’s newly installed prime minister, Binali Yildirim, has dusted off a time-honoured formula for dealing with his country’s troublesome neighbours: turn down the rhetoric and act nicely. “Our most important foreign-policy goal is to increase the number of friends,” he said in a speech on July 11th. “There is no reason for us to quarrel with Iraq, Syria, Egypt; with the countries of this region.”

dusted：埃を払うtime-honoured：長年のquarrel：諍い

Mr Yildirim has got off to a good start. In a single day last month, Turkey agreed to restore ties with Israel, with which it has been at odds since 2010, and apologised to Russia for bringing down a jet that veered into its airspace in November after a bombing run over Syria. Officials from the ruling party have since raised hopes of progress in peace talks in Cyprus, divided since 1974 between an internationally recognised Greek south and a Turkish-occupied north. They have also floated a cautious opening with Egypt and a rethink of Turkey’s botched Syria policy. After the Arab Spring of 2011, Turkey rushed headfirst into the flames that engulfed the Middle East, backing the Muslim Brothers in Egypt and Islamist insurgents in Syria. Having been burned, it now appears to be running to safety.

at odds：不和でveered ：方向を変えるfloated：流れる・提案するbotched：やりそこなうheadfirst：頭から先に・大急ぎでengulfed：を完全に変える

2016年07月26日

南シナ海 崖っぷちからの復活か 中国政府 中国が手厳しい国際判決を認めるべき理由

The South China SeaCome back from the brink, BeijingWhy China should accept a damning international rulingJul 16th 2016 | From the print edition

damning：手厳しい

南シナ海崖っぷちからの復活か 中国政府中国が手厳しい国際判決を認めるべき理由

THE aggression that China has shown in the past few years in its vast territorial grab in the South China Sea has terrified its neighbours and set it on a collision course with America, long the guarantor of peace in East Asia. This week an international tribunal thoroughly demolished China’s vaguely defined claims to most of the South China Sea. How Beijing reacts to this verdict is of the utmost geopolitical importance. If, in its fury, China flouts the ruling and continues its creeping annexation, it will be elevating brute force over international law as the arbiter of disputes among states. China’s bullying of its neighbours greatly raises the risks of a local clash escalating into war between the century’s rising superpower and America, the current one. The stakes could hardly be higher.

The ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, in response to a case brought by the Philippines, is firm, clear and everything China did not want it to be (see article). The judges said that the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) should determine how the waters of the South China Sea are divided among countries, not China’s ill-explained “nine-dash line” which implies the sea is Chinese. None of the Spratly Islands in the south of the sea, claimed (and occupied) by several countries including China, can be defined as islands that can sustain human life, they ruled. This means no country can assert an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) extending up to 200 nautical miles around them.

The court had no power to decide who owns which bits of land in the South China Sea. But the judges said that by building on rocks visible only at low tide, and thus not entitled under UNCLOS to any sovereign waters, China had encroached illegally into the Philippines’ EEZ. The court also said China had violated UNCLOS by blocking Philippine fishing boats and oil-exploration vessels and that Chinese ships had acted dangerously and unlawfully in doing so. Moreover, China’s island-building had caused “severe harm” to the habitats of endangered species, and Chinese officials had turned a blind eye to Chinese poaching of them.

encroached：侵害するhabitats：生息地endangered：絶滅危機に瀕したpoaching：侵入する

For China, this is a humiliation. Its leaders have called the proceedings illegal. Its huge recent live-fire exercises in the South China Sea imply that it may be planning a tough response. This could involve imposing an “Air Defence Identification Zone” of the kind it has already declared over the East China Sea. Or China might start building on the Scarborough Shoal, which it wrested from the Philippines in 2012 after a stand-off between the two countries’ patrol boats.